John Sloan co-artistic director at the Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale. Antaeus Theatre Company has been based in North Hollywood for years. It has outgrown its space there and built a new space in Glendale with a 45-seat black box theater and an 80-seat main theater, dressing rooms, a lobby and a library. The theater’s first show, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” opens on Thursday at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, located at 110 E Broadway, Glendale.

John Sloan co-artistic director at the library at the new Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale. Antaeus Theatre Company, which had been based in North Hollywood for years,It has outgrown its space, which included a theater academy and playwright lab as well as a stage and theater.

John Sloan co-artistic director at the Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale. Antaeus Theatre Company has been based in North Hollywood for years. It has outgrown its space there and built a new space in Glendale with a 45 and 80 seat theaters- a main stage and a Black Box, dressing rooms, a lobby. The theater’s first show, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (opening March 16) at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, located at 110 E Broadway, Glendale. (Photo by Walt Mancini/Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

John Sloan co-artistic director at the Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale. Antaeus Theatre Company has been based in North Hollywood for years. It has outgrown its space, which included a theater academy and playwright lab as well as a stage and theater.

Artist rendering of the Antaeus Theatre Company’s new home.

John Sloan co-artistic director giving a tour of the dressing room at the new Antaeus Theatre Company.

John Sloan co-artistic director at the new Antaeus Theatre Company. Antaeus Theatre Company has been based in North Hollywood for years. It has outgrown its space, which included a theater academy and playwright lab as well as a stage and theater.

When you step over the threshold of the Kiki and David Gindler Performing Arts Center in Glendale, you know you are somewhere special. Once a Gateway computer store, then empty until dust filled its corners, the space has been revamped as the new home of the Antaeus Theatre Company, which presents “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” Thursday-May 7.

Antaeus was founded in 1991 by a group of actors, many of whom are still involved with the company, whether on stage or in another capacity. It is a collaborative organization, which focuses on theater classics and is also very involved with its audiences, asking them for suggestions and opinions.

“It’s a place where you can get close to the art and close to the artists and it’s good for everybody,” Antaeus Theatre Company board chair David Gindler said.

Antaeus was cramped in NoHo

“We just were busting at the seams in North Hollywood. We started there sharing the theater and then at some point we took over the entire theater space ourselves,” Gindler said.

But it was a small space and it was getting harder and harder to support everything that Antaeus did, including a theater academy and playwright lab. By 2012 the company realized it needed to look into moving and creating a theater complex that better suited its needs, Gindler said. The search began in Hollywood and Los Angeles and then to Glendale, where some Antaeus members live.

Glendale had lost A Noise Within when the theater company moved to Pasadena in 2011, so the city welcomed Antaeus and even pointed it to a space in the expanding arts district across from the Americana at Brand. After working out the necessary details with the building’s owner, the organization had found its new home.

The Kiki and David Gindler Performing Arts Center boasts a large lobby, which will also be used for art exhibits, an intimate 80-seat theater, a 45-seat “black box” theater with lush blueberry walls and a library that will hold scripts, books on theater and related materials.

“It’s too infrequent an occurrence when a new theater gets built and I’m very proud that we’ve been able to raise the money to add to the artistic landscape in Los Angeles, to add a theater to Los Angeles County,” Gindler said.

‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ opens venue

Although the opening for Antaeus’ inaugural production “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” was pushed back from January to March, the excitement about it hasn’t waned.

“Tennessee Williams is such an extraordinary playwright; I was so happy to hear that our artistic directors had chosen that to open up our new home. It really gives our actors an opportunity to show the extraordinary breadth of their skills. I think we’re going to see a really impactful performance,” Gindler said. “It’s just the sort of deep, dark — but at the same time deeply human — play, which I think really is right for our times and I think it’s going to be told in a compelling way.”

Cameron Watson has the honor of directing the Pulitzer Prize-winning play that was Tennessee Williams’ personal favorite. Set in a plantation home on the Mississippi Delta, the drama explores family and spousal relationships and the effects of greed, sexual desire and death.

“It’s such a complicated family dynamic that everyone can pluck into in some way or the other,” Watson said. “I think there’s a timelessness to that element, the familial relationships and how complicated all of that is.”

Truth is at the core of ‘Cat’

Aware that many people have set ideas about “Cat,” Watson said that his goal is to present “real people going through a real struggle.”

“These problems are something very real and true and not something set up on a pedestal because of the iconic standing of this play. We’re trying to approach it from a truthful real play of what’s in their troubled hearts — they all have damaged hearts — and we’re just trying to tell the truth of that,” Watson said.

Colony Theatre Company in Burbank has been gracious enough to provide a rehearsal space for “Cat” while the new theater was being completed and there has been just enough time for the cast to settle in and make adjustments before opening night.

“It’s a brand-new space. We will be the very first production to ever be in that space so there’s something historical and eventful about that, just creating a piece of art in a space that didn’t exist before,” Watson said.

Watson is in post production on the second season of “Break a Hip,” a comedy web series starring Christina Pickles, which he created and writes and directs. Antaeus Theatre Company will present Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” July 20-Sept. 10.

Michelle Mills has been an entertainment and features reporter for the Southern California News Group since 1999. She has interviewed such notables as "Weird Al" Yankovic, Glen Campbell, Alice Cooper, Debbie Allen, Ernest Borgnine (during an earthquake) and Adam Young (Owl City). She was the 31st Occasional Pasadena Doo Dah Parade Queen reigning 2007-2009. She is a professional belly dancer (swordwork is her specialty) and also studies Polynesian and Tahitian dance.

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